Yesterday the Indy Star caught a story (since pulled and replaced) about the new Hamilton County Moms for Liberty chapter posted their brand new newsletter--using a quote from Adolf Hitler-- "He alone who OWNS the youth, GAINS the future" (To their credit, they did at least properly attribute it).
It's there right over the part about how they won't be intimidated by the Southern Poverty Law Center calling them an extremist group. As you might imagine, many people had feelings about this.
Then later in the day, they replaced the front page with an attempt to create context:
"The quote from a horrific leader should put parents on alert. If the government has control over our children today, they control our country's future. We The People must be vigilant and protect children from the overreaching government"
So see--they weren't admiring Nazis. They were just saying that the government and public schools are a bunch of Nazis. All better yet?
No? Well, next they tried an apology to replace the front page.
"We condemn Adolf Hitler's actions and his dark place in human history. We should not have quoted him in our newsletter and express our deepest apology."
So, it's not that they're sorry they called everyone a Nazi. They're just sorry they quoted Adolph in their newsletter.
And to show how not-sorry they were about the Nazi-namecalling thing, M4L leader and co-founder Tiffany Justice reminded Twitter that they really meant to call government folks Nazis.
So I guess it wasn't just a local chapter chair who went off-message.
Also, not the first time M4L folks have tossed this quote around. Not by a long shot.
Also, just to keep things even...
Fun times all around. If more hijinks shenanigans follow, I'll add them to the post. In the meantime, we can discuss what the best way to use Hitler as part of an argument might be (spoiler alert: never).
I'm not a fan of M4L but have you ever looked at the name calling from the other side? Fascist, right wing nut job etc...? The name calling must come to a stop on both sides! The children are listening.
ReplyDeleteTeachers and parents need to come to some agreement about what and how children are taught about fraught social issues. It is unrealistic to suppose that parents will just go along with whatever teachers (or really, school districts) decide to teach about race, gender, or poltics -- after all, school is compulsory and parents are the ones who are legally and morally responsible for their children, not to mention emotionally. Parents who are disconcerted about the idea that their children will be taught about things that have not usually been taught in the past and which they may feel to be attacks on their values, cannot be dismissed as bigots or behind the times. At the same time, parents have to respect that teachers (and school districts) will have to deal with these issues in their classrooms, if for no other reason that students will bring these topics up. Better to think about these instructional challenges ahead of time than to be caught off guard.
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